The present invention relates to stabilized cocoa flavored and colored instant pudding products and method of making the same. More particularly, the present invention is directed to an instant pudding composition containing cocoa which maintains a good texture.
Typically, instant puddings are prepared by combining a dry mix with a specified volume of milk. The dry mix contains a milk protein coagulant which interacts with the milk proteins. Somewhat arbitarily, the interaction between the coagulant and the milk protein can be viewed as a two step process: on step wherein the viscosity of the milk-dry mix combination is progressively increasing, and a second step wherein the composition sets. The most commonly used milk protein coagulents in instant pudding mixes are the tetraalkali pyrophosphates.
While these dry mixes have worked well with most flavors and colors, cocoa has always presented a problem. When a standard, dry, instant pudding mix formulation includes cocoa, the viscosity increase after the addition of milk is at a substantially slower rate than observed for the same formultion without cocoa. Furthermore, the end point, a good set, is not acheived. To overcome these problems, more starch or other viscosity building agents are included in the mix. However, increasing the amount of viscosity building agent increases the cost of the dry mix and may unbalance the flavor of the pudding made from this dry mix. Thus, it is an object of this invention to produce an instant pudding mix containing cocoa which develops both a good viscosity and set while using less viscosity building agent than has been used in the art.